This flipbook is a collaboration between the Digital Constitutionalist and Better Images of AI. It serves as a way to challenge the misrepresentative tropes that are often used to visualise AI. Instead, we showcase more inclusive and representative images of the technology which acknowledge its material reality, limitations, strengths and explore the actual functions of AI in everyday life.
What images come to mind when you think of AI? Humanoid robots, glowing brains, outstretched metal hands, the Terminator? These familiar visuals, often drawn from popular science fiction, have become overused and misleading. While science fiction often offers thoughtful explorations of technological futures, its imagery, when stripped of context and used for promotion or illustration, can distort public understanding of real AI systems.
For instance, the trope of a pensive white robot solving equations suggests sentience and autonomy. This sets unrealistic expectations and fuels anxiety about AI surpassing human control. Such representations create an illusion of inevitability and obscure the political, legal, and environmental choices that still exist to shape these technologies
To tackle this issue, Better Images of AI is a non-profit community exploring, creating and commissioning new ways to visually represent AI. Better Images of AI is convened by We and AI alongside collaborators like BBC R&D, the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and other partners. The library has been viewed over two million times, and its images have been spotted in places such as The Washington Post, TIME, LSE, and Business Insider. The images are available for anyone to use for free under a Creative Commons license, or just as inspiration for new ways of thinking about and reimagining AI.
By making better images of AI available to everyone and sharing them widely, we aim to increase understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of AI and inform people’s engagement with this increasingly influential technology.
Images included in our library feature microchips, rare metals, Finnish lakes, hair sculptures and error messages, and range from collages, illustrations, to works inspired by Persian Negargari. Sifting through the flipbook, you’ll find some of these images as well as some commentaries from the volunteers who are part of our community. Their thoughts show how each of the images in the library tells and inspires more thoughtful and pluralistic stories about AI than those which are commonly presented in the dominant media.
All visuals in the library are created by human artists, whom you can learn more about in the flipbook.
To ensure broader accessibility, we have also created an accessible version of this flipbook. It retains all the original content while offering improved readability for screen readers and users with visual impairments.
Yeliz Figen Döker is a PhD researcher at the European University Institute, where she works on AGI regulation. She is the co-founder and Head of Science Fiction at DigiCon.
